


Every Ledge

by 401



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Anger, Angst, Domestic Violence, M/M, Mild Fluff, Smoking, Tension, argument
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-25
Updated: 2015-11-25
Packaged: 2018-05-03 09:10:56
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,053
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5285051
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/401/pseuds/401
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bucky is getting harder and harder to reach.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Every Ledge

People pull away, put up their walls in three ways.

They fall headfirst and suddenly, hitting the ground at the bottom outright. That’s hard to get back from.

Sometimes, you climb down together, get a few scrapes, sore knuckles and bruised on your way, but you survive it and reach the bottom a pair.

Or you fall and hit every sharp rock and ledge on the way down. You reach the bottom alive but wounded enough that you have to stare at the top lying on your back as your chest fills up with blood you know that you caused.

Steve was aiming for the second option. A comfortable alliance between him and the soldier he loved, a man that was day by day taking more and more risky footing on that cliff.

“When did you start smoking?” Steve asked, tapping the red twenty carton on the kitchen counter next to Bucky.

He was standing at the screen door, looking out onto the balcony over a very grey Washington. His left, metal arm was wrapped around his middle protectively with the hand tucked and the right one was poised at his lips, holding the glowing white cylinder between two fingers. He took another drag before stubbing it out on his metal arm (something that made Steve flinch irrationally) and throwing it into the bucket of collected rainwater at his feet.

“It slows my head down some,” Bucky’s voice was flat and his eyes didn’t leave the skyline.

Steve sighed and frowned, putting a flat hand on Bucky’s shoulder blades. A little spike of sadness lodged in his throat at the feeling of the muscles seizing up in rejection of the touch. Steve pulled his hand back and looked the soldier in silence. His eyes looked like they had been rubbed raw.

“Buck?” Steve lowered his voice, but keeping it strong so it would be enough to pull Bucky from his thoughts again.

“You been crying, Buck?”

Bucky shrugged sharply, grabbing the cigarette packet and shakily lighting another one. The glow from the lighter held close to his face showed the salty, dried-on tracks of tears that would have otherwise been shadowed by strategically place locks of dark hair.

“You’ve been crying,” Steve took the soldiers free hand, the metal one and turned him slightly.

Bucky nodded slowly, his bottom lip tense with the force of not letting it wobble with emotion. He took another drag of the cigarette, feeling the heat in his chest that was enough to distract him for moments at a time, followed by the comfortable clouding in his thoughts. Not impaired, just bolstered and padded, not bouncing like shrapnel in his skull.

Bucky looked at his feet.

“Bucky, _please!”_ Steve’s voice was loud enough this time that Bucky snapped his head straight back up again at the sound.

The blonde’s cheeks were flushed with something that looked like anger, but was not entirely convincing. There was a shake in the shout that was not anger. When Steve was angry, he whispered. It meant people had to really listen, he said.

“What?” Bucky flinched at how apathetic his voice sounded, hoarse with tears and smoke.

“Don’t ‘what’ me Buck, you know exactly what I’m talking about,” Steve’s eyes were getting bluer, wetter around the edges, threatening tears. Bucky took a deep breath and paused for more of the onslaught.

“You shut me out, _constantly,_ ” Steve started, “You hurt yourself and do reckless things _all the_ _time_ and you don’t let me anywhere near you when you need my help the most.”

Bucky pushed past Steve back into the house, not meeting his eye. Something he hated shifted in his stomach. Guilt. He felt guilty and it stung like a mouth ulcer. You could feel it coming, that little raw patch that your tongue would ghost over again and again until it was metallic and exposed.

“Bucky?” Steve tilted his head to the side to meet the soldier’s eyes, “Look at me for Christ’s sake!”

Bucky took a shaky breath, but couldn’t wrench his eyes off of the Captain’s feet planted angrily on the other side of the room. The force of not crying was making his ribs ache.

Steve crossed the space between them suddenly, too suddenly. Bucky’s arms snapped up I front of him, sending Steve skidding on his back over the wooden floor of the living room with a winded grunt. The guilt opened up its cavernous mouth and Bucky felt its suction in the base of his stomach like a sinkhole.

“I’m sorry,” Bucky whispered, mouthed even, “I’m so sorry, Steve.”

Steve sat up and wiped the small bead of blood from his left nostril and pinched the bridge of his nose with a hiss.

“You just punched me in the face.”

The statement was flat, said with a quiet uncertainty that didn’t come from the Captain often.

“I didn’t mean…” Bucky gritted his teeth hard enough to scrape as the supressed sobs increased their pressure behind his throat, shaking his shoulders silently. He tried to take a breath in, but the moment of respiratory vulnerability merely invited a heavier barrage of sobs that starved him of air and core strength.

“Hey,” Steve reached up from his seated place on the floor, strangely calm, “C’mere Bucky, sit down.”

Bucky took Steve’s hand and knelt on the floor cautiously. Steve put his arms around him, sighing in satisfaction as he lowered them both down, lying flat looking up at the ceiling of the apartment. Steve’s anger had gone. It was replaced with slow, rhythmic ‘shushes’ and reminders of breathing. The defence had turned to nurture, shocked out of him.

“Ugh, Buck,” Steve groaned, chuckling, “Aren’t we a prize mess?”

Bucky nodded wetly, pulling closed into Steve’s side, absorbing himself in the heat. The floor was nice too. Secure.

“I didn’t mean to hit you,” Bucky croaked into the darkness of Steve’s chest, voice thick with tears and fractured by sad sniffs.

Steve smiled softly, staring at the ceiling for a moment before closing his eyes.

“Even if you did,” Steve muttered, seeming distant, “You really think I would’ve been mad?”

Bucky didn’t answer.

He just tightened his grip on the one thing that was stopping him falling and hitting every sharp rock and ledge on the way down.

 

 

 


End file.
